Imagine having all of your possessions disappear. Poof. Just like that.
Not a nice thought?
Well, that could just happen to your WordPress blog.
WordPress is without a doubt the most popular and simplest platform to use to start and manage your blog. And it’s easy to see why.
It’s free, it’s super user-friendly and it has a major community to help you with any questions you might have.
But as we know all too well, life is not a bed of roses. Sh*t happens.
In 2012 alone, more than 170 000 WordPress website was hacked – and this number is definitely much higher by now.
As much as we love WordPress, we love our blogs even more. This is especially true if we’re using our blogs as a source of income.
This means it’s a pretty damn good idea to have a WordPress backup plugin, in case of emergencies. Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t include built-in backups, but there are a lot of plugin options that do the trick.
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With so many out there, we’ve done the dirty work for you and have rounded up our top eight choices for a WordPress backup plugin.

Why do I need a WordPress Backup Plugin?

If my possessions analogy wasn’t clear enough, let me spell it out for you.
Technology, and more often than not people, aren’t 100% reliable.
The more popular a website is, the more likely it is a target for cyber attacks. Such attacks affect the actual platform the site is on – and WordPress is one of the most popular platforms on the internet.
According to a survey done by W3Techs in 2015, WordPress powers 25% of all websites. If your Maths sucks that’s a quarter of the entire Internet.
Before we dive into the saviors that are WordPress backup plugins, here’s a short list of the catastrophes your WordPress site is exposed to:
  • Unexpected server failures
  • Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
  • Hacking via insecure themes
  • Hacking via vulnerable plugins
  • Hacking via weak passwords
  • Dodgey updates
  • Data theft
  • Data loss
Now that you know what you’re up against, you need to know how to prevent WordPress hacking and other catastrophes. One of the best ways? A WordPress backup plugin. Here are our top eight:

  1. Backup Buddy

    The original, the godfather and the don of WordPress backups, Backup Buddy gives you peace of mind with no strings attached. Although it might be one of the more expensive options, it works on a monthly fee, not a subscription. The plugin not only backs up the WordPress database, it backs up your entire WordPress installation, so you have a copy of every single one of your WordPress website files. Then there’s also the choice to backup your site daily weekly, or monthly. Nice.

  2. BackWPUp

    This nifty plugin is 100% free, and 100% easy to use. It saves your complete WordPress installation and pushes it to an external backup service. You get to choose where your backup goes – on your computer, email or your choice of storage cloud. BackWPUp supports a whole bunch of cloud services, including Dropbox, Rackspace and Amazon S3. Added bonus: you can schedule automatic backups for your site according to its update frequency.

  3. UpdraftPlus

    Another freebie option, UpdraftPlus has a great user-friendly interface that lets you backup and restores your site with a click of a button. You get to choose which of your files you would like to backup, and where it goes. From Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP, SFTP you’re spoilt for choice with your cloud storage service options. Perhaps its biggest asset is UpdraftPlus’ support of both scheduled and on-demand backups.

  4. Duplicator

    Although its primary function is to migrate WordPress sites, this plugin lets you manually backup your entire WordPress site by, yup you guessed it, duplicating it. But for the more powerful backup features, you’re going to have to pay. Scheduled backups, email notifications, and cloud storage are only available through the Pro version. For WordPress sites that are regularly maintained, Duplicator may not be the best option, due to its lack of automated backups.

  5. VaultPress

    This plugin is designed and built by Automattic, the very team who operates WordPress.com. Now part of Jetpack, VaultPress lets you automatically back up your whole site to their servers, from posts, comments, media files and dashboard settings. It’s user-friendly, and their support staff is quick to lend a hand if need be. With prices starting from around $3.50 a month, the cost of using this plugin long-term on several WordPress sites can add up.

  6. BackUpWordPress

    Great for users who don’t have a whole lot of developing experience, BackUpWordPress plugin is super simple to use, with no setup required. Its automatic scheduling support lets you create different schedules for your databases and files. You can even choose when you’d like the backup to start, and the number of backups stored on your website. The downside? The free version doesn’t let you store your backups to a cloud storage service – you’ll need to buy the premium extension for that.

  7. WP DB Backup

    This plugin is a great option if you’re looking to backup your database, however, it doesn’t back up your files. WP DP Backup has all the normal benefits of backup scheduling, downloading the database to your computer and via email. Perhaps a plus for those more knowledgeable on code, this plugin include a feature where you can choose to leave out some of the tables from your database backup. This might be a bit daunting for beginners.

  8. blogVault

    A great option if you’re looking for a free plugin, blogVault offers an automated daily backup solution directly to DropBox. It doesn’t use any local storage for backups, but rather handles all storage offsite. A bonus for really big WordPress website, blogVault offers incremental backups. Plus its pricing and plans are not determined by the size of your website. The catch? It requires some setup on your part, which may be more than you bargained for